How many spiders is too many spiders?


My heart says you can’t have too many spiders, but my brain says, “Whoa there, that’s a lot of spiders to sort out and feed.” Then my brain has second thoughts and realizes many of the babies will die, so we better get extras, and then agrees with my heart. So many spiders to to separate into vials…and more to come.

Comments

  1. John Morales says

    I know it’s facetious, but…

    Depends on the spider.

    I’ve seen some formidable-looking specimens that I kept away from; armored in black chitin, not small, fangy. They look like they mean business.

    (The ones PZ features, no worries)

  2. chris61 says

    Just curious. Do you have a breeding colony or are all your experiments done on spiders collected from the wild?

  3. brightmoon says

    The last time a spider egg case opened up in my house, after I got over the screaming hissy fit and got the Raid, there were about 100 babies in a huge web that spanned my living room . Sorry PZ , the only 8 legged organisms I tolerate and even liked were the octopuses. They were cool spiders are just creepy

  4. davidc1 says

    In one of my sheds where i keep my models ,a cave spider (i think it is ,long legs and long thin body) had her babies on the underside of a 1/32 Bristol Beaufighter ,the airplane not the car .I haven’t disturbed them ,well the most I did was gently blow on the web just to see them scatter .
    No squisning was involved .Now they have all dispersed ,leaving behind a lot of shed skins .